See Secretary of State John Kerry posing for a photo with Senate and House leaders at the dedication of a bust of Winston Churchill at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on October 30, 2013. The bust is being placed pursuant to H. Res. 497, which was authored by House Speaker John Boehner and passed […]

Here are President Barack Obama, with Vice President Joe Biden, attending a meeting in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Dec. 12, 2013. This image scares me a little. I don’t see contemplation, I see menace. It’s interesting, how I’ve disliked different presidents different ways. The first president about whom I formed a grownup […]

Arab protesters were wearing Santa Claus costumes and waving Palestinian flags outside the West Bank village of Bilin, 7.5 miles outside Ramallah, Friday, Dec. 27, 2013. I suppose theme rallies are in again. Bilin is kind of a bedroom community for PLO officials working in Ramallah. Since January 2005, the PLO has been organizing weekly […]

Opening event: December 29th, 7:30 pm at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center, Jerusalem Jerusalem, Israel, December 24, 2013 – A moving first-of-its-kind exhibition showcasing the works of Jewish artists from the Former Soviet Union memorializing the Holocaust, will be on display and open to the public free of charge in Jerusalem for one month beginning […]

Bereaved Israeli families demonstrated on Wednesday in front of the Prime Minister’s house in Jerusalem with signs saying “We’re stopping the release of terrorists.” Israel is planning to release 26 Palestinian prisoners on Sunday, December 29, in the third stage of a deal brokered by the U.S. in July that brought about the resumption of […]

The Jerusalem Lions is the only women Rugby team in Jerusalem, and in 2009 it placed third in the Rugby league in Israel. In 2010 I’m not sure they competed. Their only competitors are the Tel Aviv and Haifa teams. The team is made up of amateurs in their 30s who leave their work and […]

U.S. Soldiers of the 2nd Battalion, 113th Infantry Regiment, Provincial Reconstruction Team Security Forces, provide security outside the village of Shabadeen in Sarobi district, Paktika province, Afghanistan. It’s so clear what the soldiers in the picture are thinking. “What am I doing here?” Followed by: “What the heck am I doing here?” Yori Yanover

According to GoIsrael, Odem Forest, in the northern Golan, is the home of a deer reserve, with many different species. Nearby you can also see Rujum al-Hiri (Circle of Ghosts), a Megalithic structure about 5,000 years old that researchers believe was used for ritual purposes, burial or as an astronomy observatory. And feeding reindeer? Yori […]

Neve Tzedek (lit. Abode of Justice) in southwestern Tel Aviv was the first Jewish neighborhood to be built outside the walls of the ancient port city of Jaffa, in 1887, 22 years before the City of Tel Aviv. In the early 1900s, many artists and writers made Neve Tzedek their home, most notably Nobel prize […]

Alternative History or Alternative Reality is a sub-genre of science fiction dealing with worlds in which one or more historical events unfolded not the way it did in our real world. I had a glimpse of that when I looked at this picture from Thursday’s joint press conference of Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and […]

Here’s Rabbi Motti Elon walking away from the Magistrate Court in Jerusalem, December 18, 2013, after hearing his verdict. Elon, former head of Yeshivat Hakotel in Jerusalem, was convicted of sexually assaulting two of his former students, in 2003 and 2005, and sentenced with 6 months of community service, 6 months suspended sentence and a […]

Fireworks and klieg lights framed the Grand Peterhof Palace during the cultural program following the leaders’ dinner at the Grand Peterhof Palace, during the G20 Summit in Saint Petersburg, Russia, Sept. 5, 2013. And this is the Walt Disney logo… The question is, of course, which outfit sells us more illusions… Yori Yanover

Sudanese illegal migrants marching towards Jerusalem (they actually ended up in Beer Sheva) in protest of the new Holot (sands) detention camp, Monday, December 16. The new anti-infiltration law that was passed in the Knesset a week ago permits residents of the camps—mostly Sudanese and Eritreans—to leave the site until 10 PM each day, provided […]

Yesterday we published a picture by our own Yishai Fleisher, of a man insisting on having his morning coffee at his favorite Jerusalem café, and the elements be damned. Apparently this is becoming a trend, as you can see from the top picture on this page. Although I’m not so sure about how relaxed these […]

The elite IDF Alpine Unit training in Mt. Hermon. The Alpine Unit is charged with protecting Mount Hermon region and the civilians who live there. The unit is comprised of reserve soldiers who were formerly part of other elite units and volunteered to serve in the snow. Consider it a Swiss vacation substitute. The unit […]

Our image provider, Flash90, had a lot of Jerusalem snow images of kids and dogs and snowmen that didn’t really say Jerusalem. Only a few were like these: Jerusalem famous location under a heavy blanket of snow. I’m not a big fan of snow, frankly, which is why we settled in Netanya. It’s pretty cold […]

This is Kikar Hamedina – State Circle, in north Tel Aviv, yesterday, Wednesday, December 11, after the major winter storm that hit Israel Tuesday evening. When I was a kid, in April, the great Italian Medrano Circus would pitch its tent in Kikar Hamedina for a few months (I doubt they do it any more, […]

The Israelis around me are spreading the rumors about winter being the current season here. As someone who spent 37 winters in New York City, I fail to recognize this as fact. At most, what we’re having is a cool August. The young woman walking along the shore at Mikhmoret beach, a few miles from […]

Here’s Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte laying a wreath at the Hall of Remembrance on Sunday, during a visit to the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial museum in Jerusalem. But why is he wearing a yarmulke? It doesn’t look like he’s about to bench or say Shma Yisrael. Will he take the yarmulke along to Ramallah, […]